musing on "sanity" and "being right"

[kengr]

While reading something I got to thinking.

An old description some author had came to mind. "Reasoning psychotic" was his term for someone who used reason and logic, but to attain insane goals.

Which lead me to consider that just because someone is using reason and logic doesn't mean that their conclusions are correct. Nor does the *lack* of reason or logic in an argument mean that the conclusion is automatically wrong.

Both are things that people need to keep in mind.

Comments

It's true enough...

[seawasp]

... but rather obvious. It's sorta equivalent to the old saying: "The race may not always go to the swift, nor the battle to the strong... but that's the way to bet." Similarly, yes, someone may be following accurate logic down a wrong path, and another reaching the right conclusions through completely erroneous means, but if you're going to have to make a call, the logical approach is more likely to be right. Especially if it's a COMPREHENSIVE logical approach; the usual way in which someone "goes wrong with confidence" is by narrowly defining their problem space and ignoring crucial facts just outside of the domain they want to consider.

Re: It's true enough...

[kengr]

You missed part of the idea. Namely, that even if they are reasoning correectly and logically, that has *no* connection with the *purpose* behind said reasoning or logic.

That's where the "reasoning psychotic" came from originally, and why such are a danger.

Folks who reach a correct answer via incorrect methods aren't a danger. But you do want to keep an eye on them to see if they do so often, in which case something odd is going on.

Well, the purpose...

[seawasp]

... can't affect the logic. It may affect what you're choosing to logically prove, but not the logic itself. That is where you have to look at the "selected domain" problem. People who have a strong axe to grind may reason logically, but very carefully select the "truths" (postulates) that they accept so as to be able to prove the thing they want proven.

People who freqently arrive at correct answers from incorrect premises? The only ones I knew appeared, to me, to simply be disjoint in their thinking; their EXTERNAL processes were incorrect, but somewhere in their gut they seem to understand what was really going on. (this is most common in the physical and financial arenas)

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

I've known people who could use logic and reason perfectly well, but their postulates were totally off! Even good logic proceeding from a bad beginning produces bad (although self-consistent) answers.

A "correct" answer reached without benefit of logic is unsupported, and therefore unstable and vulnerable.